Abel Tesfaye, of The Weeknd, told Complex magazine a great deal about ‘Kiss Land’:

A lot of it is inspired by filmmakers like John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Ridley Scott, because they know how to capture fear. That’s what ‘Kiss Land’ is to me, an environment that’s just honest fear … I don’t know who I am right now and I’m doing all these outlandish things in these settings that I’m not familiar with. To me, it’s the most terrifying thing ever. So when you hear the screams in the record and you hear all these horror references and you feel scared, listen to the music because I want you to feel what I’m feeling. ‘Kiss Land’ is like a horror movie.